Momentum is a strange and elusive beast.
The Rangers, after the first two games in this first-round Stanley Cup playoff series, looked like they were about to boat-race the Devils. En route to a 2-0 series lead, the Rangers looked like they could — and would — do no wrong. They looked confident and seasoned while ripping the Devils on their home ice in consecutive blowouts.
The Devils, meanwhile, looked dazed and confused and were playing as if they had bought into the theory that their lack of playoff experience, compared to the Rangers’, would eventually doom them.
Then came the next three games.
Momentum be damned.
The Devils took Games 3 and 4 at the Garden and then thoroughly embarrassed the Rangers in a Game 5 shutout on Thursday night at Prudential Center to take a 3-2 series lead.
That led to Game 6 on Saturday night at the Garden. The Devils, having found their legs and their confidence, were on a roll. And the Rangers, needing a win to force a Game 7, were on life support with their play having deteriorated with each of the three consecutive losses.
Maybe it was the presence of Aaron Rodgers in the celebrity seats taking in his first Rangers game as Jets quarterback and drawing raucous cheers from the home crowd.
Maybe it was the fact that the Knicks are about to begin their second-round playoff series Sunday afternoon against the Heat and were hoping for some postseason company in the building the two teams share.
Whatever it was, there was an urgency from the Rangers we hadn’t felt all series. There was fire. There was anger. And in the end, there was an emphatic 5-2 victory over the Devils, which means there will be a winner-take-all Game 7 on Monday night at Prudential Center.
Go ahead and try to figure this series out.
Momentum be damned.
“Desperate hockey,’’ Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said afterward. “When your backs are against the wall, you play your best game and I thought we did tonight. Their mentality was, ‘We’re down three games to two and we have to have more attack mentality, we’ve got to score more goals.’ We found a way to score some goals on the kid.”
The “kid’’ is Devils rookie goaltender Akira Schmid, who had become somewhat of a folk hero since taking over for starter Vitek Vanecek after New Jersey lost the first two games by identical 5-1 scores.
When Braden Schneider scored the Rangers’ fifth goal of Game 6 with 7:32 remaining, Devils coach Lindy Ruff pulled Schmid, creating the possibility of perhaps another goaltender switch for Game 7.
That’s how lopsided this game became.
Inside the Devils’ locker room, though, there was an insistence that they had played well despite the final score. The Devils did, indeed, have the better of the play early.
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“I thought we dominated the first period,’’ Ruff said. “We had them exactly where we wanted them. Penalties hurt us. I thought the penalties [six of them] took our best players away from the game, had to spend too much time on the bench. That hurt us.’’
So here we are now, with Game 7 nearly upon us and with zero idea which team has the momentum, because momentum has been so misleading this entire series.
“We’ve worked all year long to have home-ice advantage for Game 7,’’ Ruff said. “What a game to be in. Where would you rather be — playing at home in front of your fans in a Game 7? It’s something that, if you’re a little kid, you’re going to sit there and go, ‘Man, I’d love to play in that game.’
“We’ve worked hard all year to get to this point and I know the team that’s in that locker room is going to give me everything they’ve got.’’
Want to catch a game? Tickets for all upcoming Rangers games can be found here.
Before the series, Ruff called his team a bunch of “young rebels,’’ referring to the talented bunch without a lot of playoff experience among its star players.
“You’ve got to enjoy this moment,” Ruff said before Game 6. “The prize we’re going after … we need to get one more win in this series and we’re going to try our hardest to get that [Saturday].”
For the first time in four games, the Rangers looked like they tried harder.
“Whenever you have a chance to finish a series, that’s when you want to play your best game,” Devils forward Erik Haula said before the game. “The longer it goes, you just never know, because Game 7 is always a toss-up.’’
Go ahead and try to figure out what’ll happen Monday night in Jersey.
Good luck with that.
Momentum is a strange and elusive beast.
